INDUSTRIES 



iron of the north of England was rarely worked 

 from the Conquest to the death of John,^ while 

 later records show that a considerable amount of 

 iron was produced during the fourteenth and 

 fifteenth centuries. The bishops of Durham, 

 however, sent to Spain when in need of iron of 

 superior quality. 



Little information is extant as to the methods 

 adopted in the early ironworks, whether Roman 

 or mediaeval. Probably the ore was sandwiched 

 between layers of charcoal and placed in tall 

 furnaces, the site being carefully selected on a 

 high hill or in a draughty valley, the wind thus 

 providing a capricious but natural bellows. Two 

 tunnels have been discovered on the side of a 

 hill near Lanchester, thought by Collingwood 

 Bruce to be of Roman origin.' 



These tunnels taper from a wide mouth and 

 converge on a point where the furnaces were 

 placed. The mouths were towards the west, 

 from which quarter the wind in that valley 

 principally blows. 



The happy discovery by Mr. Lapsley among 

 a miscellaneous bundle of Auditors' Records in 

 the Public Record Office of the account roll of 

 John Dalton, the first Durham ironmaster of 

 whose work any accurate account is extant, 

 throws a flood of light on the subject during the 

 fifteenth century. 



This extremely interesting document gives a 

 detailed and consecutive account of the working 

 of some newly-erected furnaces from 1 2 June, 

 1408, to II November, 1409. Up to this date 

 the bishop had apparently put the mineral 

 products of the Palatinate out to farm ; but 

 Bishop Langley tried the experiment of running 

 a forge of his own, and put the venture into 

 the hands of John Dalton. The history of the 

 enterprise subsequent to 1409 is not recorded ; 

 possibly it was unsuccessful ; though the mana- 

 ger seems to have put both energy and foresight 

 into his work, for he visited a neighbouring 

 forge to get an insight into the best methods 

 of working his own. It is impossible to 

 settle with complete certainty the precise 

 site of the new undertaking. ' Byrkeknott 

 juxta Bedbourne ' has disappeared, but pro- 

 bably Mr. Lapsley is right in identifying it 

 with Bedburn Forge, a very small hamlet 

 close to Bedburn Beck, between Hamsterley 

 and Wolsingham. A foundry was carried on 

 there in the early nineteenth century,* but the 

 buildings are now used as a stocking factory. 

 Any ambiguity there may be about the position 

 of the bishop's forge is amply compensated for 

 by the precise description that is given of the 

 erection of the works. Two furnaces — a 

 ' blomeharth,' where the ore passed through the 



' H. Scrivener, Hist, of the Iron Trade, 6. 

 ' J. C. Bruce, Tke Roman Wall, 433-4. 

 * White & Parson, Dir. Northumb. and Dur. 1828, 

 p. 234. 



preliminary process of smelting, and a ' stryng- 

 harth,' where any impurities that still remained 

 were got rid of, and the iron was heated for its 

 second working by hand into vendible shape — 

 were erected by local workmen under the super- 

 vision of John Dalton.^ 



Probably the furnace discovered and described 

 by Mr. Richardson in 1884 was somewhat of 

 the same nature. 



It had an internal diameter at its widest part of 

 from five to six feet, contracted at its boshes to about 

 1 8 inches. Higher up the bank was found a heap of 

 iron ore, where it had probably been placed to be 

 calcined before being put into the furnace. About 

 30 loads of slag, some birch charcoal, and some lime- 

 stone for flux were found round the furnace, and at 

 the bottom of the furnace were a few small lumps of 

 imperfectly smelted iron. 



. . . . the water of the burn furnished the 

 power for the blast. The furnace was entirely built 

 and lined with stone, and no bricks were found.^ 



These primitive methods were a slight advance 

 on the very earliest fashion of smelting, for an 

 artificial blast was produced by a bellows, kept in 

 motion by a wheel' turned by water from the 

 dammed-up stream. Apparently this was the 

 sole mechanical appliance, for no forge hammer 

 is mentioned among the detailed list of tools 

 given. 



The stafF consisted of the general manager, 

 John Dalton ; a collier, who prepared the char- 

 coal from the brushwood of the neighbouring 

 forest ; a ' blomesmyth ' or ' smy thman ' in charge 

 of the ' blomeharth,' and a ' faber ' working at the 

 ' stryngharth.' Some additional help must have 

 been required, and from a reference to William 

 Aycle, who undertook a journey to Yorkshire in 

 order to procure workpeople, it may reasonably 

 be conjectured that more hands were employed 

 than are specifically enumerated. The employ- 

 ment of the wives of the foreman and smith lends 

 an air of domesticity to the little settlement. 

 The wife of John Gyll, 'the blomesmyth,' seems 

 to have been a general factotum ; sometimes 

 helping her husband or the labourers, then work- 

 ing at the bellows. At first her employment 

 was intermittent and her payment irregular, but 

 later she seems to have settled down to fixed 

 employment at a regular rate of \d. a blome, 

 i.e. a weight of 15 stones of 13 pounds each. 



' R. Dur. Aud. Rec. 5, 149, printed in Engl. Hist. 

 Rev. xiv, 509-29. 



* J. C. Hodgson, Hist, of Northumb. vi, 161. 



' At the bishop's forge we hear of the making of a 

 ' water gate ' and a waterwheel and of ' les spowtes 

 lignea ducentia aquam i dicto Watergate usque dictam 

 rotam pendentem,' but it is doubtful whether water 

 power was always applied for working the bellows, as 

 the wife of the ' blomesmyth ' is not only mentioned 

 as ' folles sufflans,' but also on occasion ' operariis auxi- 

 lians ad le belowes.' 



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